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A few weeks ago, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) informed 48 agencies in Illinois that their funding will end June 30, including ALL services to deaf and hard of hearing children in Illinois outside of the regular classroom. This includes the Illinois Service Resource Center (ISRC), an agency created to serve the needs of deaf and hard-of-hearing children who have emotional (psychiatric) and behavioral problems and Highlighting Education and Resources (HEAR) an agency providing free training, consultation and technical assistance to regular and special education teachers, administrators, parents and students on topics related to deafness. ISRC is a small agency including a school psychologist, teacher, behavior specialist and social worker. It has been providing free services to all school districts in Illinois for the past 12 years providing classroom techinical asistance to teachers, psychological testing for deaf students for district without signing staff, coordination for psychiatric hospitalization when needed, presentations on deafness and secondary disabilities and a variety of school related topics, a lending library of free resources (books, psychological testing materials, videos, etc) related to deafness, etc. HEAR has been providing services to "gifted" deaf students for six years. Why the cut in funding? Recently PA 93-1022 was passed which limited the amound of money that the ISBE could keep for discretionary funds (including those for ISRC and HEAR). Originally, ISBE kept 30% of the money received from IDEA for discretionary funds and administrative costs, but PA 93-1022 limits the amount of funds retained by ISBE for these funds to 3%. Therefore, 48 programs will be cut. After June 30th, school districts in Illinois have NO resources to contact for these students previously served by ISRC and HEAR. Who created PA 93-1022? Ironically it was the Superintendents of Illinois school districts who wanted more money for their individual schools. What can be done? ISRC and HEAR supporters have recently attending a meeting in Springfield, IL of the ISBE and asked that the services NOT be cut. A local news team covered the story and aired it that week. Still, no promises have been made and deaf and hard of hearing students (ages birth to 21years) in Illinois are the loosers in the governmental power struggle.
A few weeks ago, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) informed 48 agencies in Illinois that their funding will end June 30, including ALL services to deaf and hard of hearing children in Illinois outside of the regular classroom. This includes the Illinois Service Resource Center (ISRC), an agency created to serve the needs of deaf and hard-of-hearing children who have emotional (psychiatric) and behavioral problems and Highlighting Education and Resources (HEAR) an agency providing free training, consultation and technical assistance to regular and special education teachers, administrators, parents and students on topics related to deafness. ISRC is a small agency including a school psychologist, teacher, behavior specialist and social worker. It has been providing free services to all school districts in Illinois for the past 12 years providing classroom techinical asistance to teachers, psychological testing for deaf students for district without signing staff, coordination for psychiatric hospitalization when needed, presentations on deafness and secondary disabilities and a variety of school related topics, a lending library of free resources (books, psychological testing materials, videos, etc) related to deafness, etc. HEAR has been providing services to "gifted" deaf students for six years. Why the cut in funding? Recently PA 93-1022 was passed which limited the amound of money that the ISBE could keep for discretionary funds (including those for ISRC and HEAR). Originally, ISBE kept 30% of the money received from IDEA for discretionary funds and administrative costs, but PA 93-1022 limits the amount of funds retained by ISBE for these funds to 3%. Therefore, 48 programs will be cut. After June 30th, school districts in Illinois have NO resources to contact for these students previously served by ISRC and HEAR. Who created PA 93-1022? Ironically it was the Superintendents of Illinois school districts who wanted more money for their individual schools. What can be done? ISRC and HEAR supporters have recently attending a meeting in Springfield, IL of the ISBE and asked that the services NOT be cut. A local news team covered the story and aired it that week. Still, no promises have been made and deaf and hard of hearing students (ages birth to 21years) in Illinois are the loosers in the governmental power struggle.
